Makeover the U.N.

But a U.N. headquarters moved from New York to Geneva, Switzerland could be trimmed back to its core functions as a world forum. The UNFPA should be the first body to be scuttled. Followed by the Inter-Governmental Climate Panel (IPCC), which has become nothing more than Al Gore’s sandbox. The IPCC recently had to backtrack on its environmental doomsday predictions. Those glaciers in the Himalayas are not going to melt by 2035, after all. They’re slated to melt by 2305. Just a typo, the IPCC gnomes claimed.

The U.N. Human Rights Council should be deep-sixed. It’s more than an outrage to have Cuba, Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia sitting on a body so named--it’s hypocrisy on stilts.

By moving the U.N. headquarters to Geneva, the traditional city of diplomacy, we can avoid the gross humiliation of having the world’s leading terrorist—Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—come to our greatest city to spew his hatred from the platform of the U.N. He represents an Iranian regime that murdered 241 U.S. Marines and Navy Corpsmen in Beirut in 1983 and that threatened 52 American hostages with death for 444 days in our Tehran embassy. He is killing American servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan today. Even as he spoke to the UN General Assembly, he was holding two American hikers prisoner. And yet we have to pay New York’s police for providing security for his wretched life!

If all the U.N. can be is a forum for the airing of international disputes, then Geneva is the obvious location. President Obama could embrace this move as a cost-cutter and a first step in his effort to show the world a kinder and gentler U.S. profile.